Your Primer on Martech for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)
You may have encountered the term “martech” before. Martech, short for marketing technology, encompasses marketers’ tools to monitor, assess, and evaluate their digital marketing endeavors. Platforms like Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and Salesforce, among others, constitute specialized tools within the Martech landscape, each serving distinct functions.
Understanding Martech for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs)
Leveraging marketing tools is indispensable for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Regardless of your industry, the shift towards digital platforms among your competitors necessitates the utilization of marketing technologies to stay competitive.
Unlike more giant corporations, SMBs operate with limited resources and funding. Therefore, selecting the right marketing technology becomes crucial.
While Martech isn’t exclusive to small businesses, they must develop a competitive digital marketing strategy.
How to Develop an SMB Martech Stack
Uncertain where to begin? Choosing the appropriate marketing technology stack for an SMB poses a significant challenge, as does utilizing them effectively. A clear strategy is essential to crafting an SMB marketing stack.
Having a well-defined strategy simplifies the research process. For instance, let’s consider a scenario where your small business sells flower pots locally. This straightforward goal can translate into a specific objective of boosting website traffic.
There are numerous avenues to increase website traffic. We aim to enhance traffic during the summer months. How can we achieve this using martech? For an SMB like yours, employing tools like Google Analytics to identify the primary marketing channel would be advantageous.
Subsequently, social media is the optimal choice for this particular goal. Utilizing platforms like Buffer or Hootsuite can help manage social media strategies. After thorough testing and analysis, we can return to Google Analytics to evaluate how social media efforts influenced website traffic.
With a well-configured Google Analytics setup, we can even pinpoint the exact sessions generated from social media channels. This example illustrates one of the many ways SMBs can utilize martech to accomplish their business objectives effectively.
Discover more about crafting your martech stack in our video.
13 Essential SMB Marketing Technologies to Incorporate
A myriad of SMB marketing technologies can enhance your stack. Here are a few categorized by use case:
- Website: Platforms like WordPress and Hootsuite, equipped with built-in content management systems (CMS), are ideal for SMBs without an updated website.
- SEO: Tools such as Moz or Yoast aid in optimizing web content to enhance search engine rankings.
- Data Reporting and Analytics: Essential tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Google Data Studio simplify data collection and facilitate informed marketing strategies.
- Email: Platforms like Mailchimp and Hootsuite support various phases of email marketing, driving website traffic and nurturing leads.
- CRM: Salesforce, an excellent marketing tool, combines sales and service functionalities to retain existing customers.
- Marketing Automation: Solutions like SharpSpring automates various marketing tasks, from email campaigns to content asset management.
- Social Media: Buffer, Hootsuite, and CoSchedule streamline social media management tasks for SMBs.
- Chat: Tools like Disqus, UberConference, Drift, and Hootsuite facilitate customer engagement and lead nurturing.
- Video: YouTube and Vimeo offer accessible platforms to leverage visual content for increased user engagement.
- Paid Advertising: Google Ads, Facebook, and Linkedin are effective platforms for executing online advertising campaigns.
- Retargeting: Google Ads and AdRoll are valuable for retargeting efforts aimed at previous customers or leads.
- Proposals: PandaDoc automates the proposal creation and sending process, enhancing lead conversion.
- Data Management Platforms: Salesforce and Stitch assist SMBs in organizing and leveraging accumulated data effectively.
While these tools offer significant advantages for marketing strategies, a drawback is their disconnected nature.
